If not the fire in thy veins
by shallowness
Summary: Archie goes to the kitchen after a bad day. Set at some point soon after 1.07. Lexie McTavish/Archie MacDonald (one-sided).


Title: If not the fire in thy veins  
Author: shallowness  
Fandom: Monarch of the Glen (TV)  
Rating: PG  
Characters/Pairing: Lexie McTavish/Archie MacDonald (one-sided)  
Summary: Archie goes to the kitchen after a bad day.  
Author's Note: 931 words, written for the prompt 'Any, any, fire in my veins'. Set at some point soon after 1.07.

 **If not the fire in thy veins: shallowness**

Archie ends up in the kitchen, telling himself that it's because there's a strong possibility of bumping into his father in most of the other rooms, and Archie cannot face his progenitor again today. He really can't. It's getting dark outside, and the mizzle is bound to turn into proper Highlands rain. The last place he plans to go to is his office, where there are bills and worries waiting. He can get back to them tomorrow.

It would be pathetic to head early to a lonely bed or to hide out in the loo with a newspaper, and that last idea is far too much like the sort of thing his father would do. So, all things considered, he heads for the kitchen.

Lexie takes one look at him, weary and tense, and says, "I know what you need."

Her reward for that welcome is a small smile from Archie. As she turns her back on him, reaching for a certain bottle, she sets herself the goal of getting a much bigger smile out of the young Laird. She grips the bottle tight and then lifts a couple of glasses.

Archie takes a seat at the table, feeling like he made the right decision to come here. He's even more sure of it as he watches the amber liquid being poured into a glass. If he'd felt like this in London - not that he ever felt quite like this in London where life was normal and crises didn't involve seventeenth-century bed-warmers and his father - he'd have gone to the pub, more for the company than the booze, to get a change of perspective.

"You're a very wise woman, Lexie," he says, trying to remember the quote about whisky's properties. "The water of life is exactly what I need."

Lexie just wishes that he felt that way about the so-called wise woman pouring it out.

She fills a second glass, making sure the levels are the same, before passing the first to Archie, taking a seat beside him. She's almost done for the night, her labours for tomorrow stowed away in the fridge, and she decides that the dishes can dry on their own for once.

"Want to talk about it?" she asks companionably.

Archie picks up the glass and shakes his head. Although Lexie hadn't been in the middle of today's shenanigans – which is partly why he came here – she's no doubt heard all about it from his mother or Duncan.

"If I were to write a book about everything that's happened since I came back to Glenfogle, today probably wouldn't make it in," he says. "Not outlandish enough.

"Slàinte."

After acknowledging his toast, Lexie watches Archie swallow down his first sip of whisky. She can't help it, although she has a strong inkling it's none too wise for her too stare too long at Archie MacDonald, handsome laird, gorgeous man, near enough to touch, just to check if her memory's been playing tricks on her. It's in moments like this, when she's feeling for him, that he's at his most dangerous to her. She takes her own first sip. It's a big one.

"Are you planning on doing that, then?" she asks lightly, "Writing a book?"

He smiles ruefully.

"If I thought I'd get a six-figure advance, I would. But I wouldn't, so, no, I don't have literary ambitions."

"It'd be a good read," she says.

"I think the critics would claim it was unbelievable," Archie confides.

"That's true, you might have a better chance claiming you'd made it all up. Nobody would believe that anyone could have such a brilliant housekeeper," she says, smiling, but Archie doesn't join her, leaning back in his chair, his eyes clouding over as he thinks about the past few hours, perhaps the past few months.

Lexie feels the same old pull to offer Archie a cuddle, and hastily drinks another sip so she's too busy to open her big mouth. That cuddle had led to a little more, hadn't it? 'A damn good snog', he'd called it.

She wonders if what happened in that sleeper in Penrith keeps replaying in Archie's mind the way it does in hers. The irresistible smell and warmth of him, the way their lips fitted together…

Lexie knows she's flushing, and hopes that if Archie notices, he'll put it down to the drink. Based on his behaviour, not just pulling away then, but all that's happened since, the canny part of her knows full well he doesn't think on it. It's just that there's still hope inside of her, unquenchable, that he might yet. After all, he did come to her tonight.

"I'll tell you what's unbelievable," she says, looking for a distracting topic. "One of my friends has got a job in a vegan restaurant - a vegan restaurant in Edinburgh. I know you're meant to live and let live, but Sorcha's pretty much going to be learning all the exciting ways you can cook tofu for the foreseeable."

Archie opens his eyes, so she hams up her mock disgust a little more. She actually congratulated Sorcha sincerely when she heard, although she couldn't drum up a vegan menu day after day herself, and she's glad she's never going to need to. But Lexie will pretend to be outraged if she can drive away Archie's dark mood by doing so. Lexie might not be the fire in his veins, not like she thinks Archie is in hers, but she can do this for him, and she knows, oh how she knows, he needs it.


End file.
